PKG_ADD(1) BSD General Commands Manual PKG_ADD(1)NAME
pkg_add — a utility for installing software package distributions
SYNOPSIS
pkg_add [-viInfFrRMSK] [-t template] [-p prefix] [-P prefix]
[-C chrootdir] pkg-name [pkg-name ...]
DESCRIPTION
The pkg_add command is used to extract packages that have been previously
created with the pkg_create(1) command.
WARNING
Since the pkg_add command may execute scripts or programs contained
within a package file, your system may be susceptible to “trojan horses”
or other subtle attacks from miscreants who create dangerous package
files.
You are advised to verify the competence and identity of those who pro‐
vide installable package files. For extra protection, use the -M flag to
extract the package file, and inspect its contents and scripts to ensure
it poses no danger to your system's integrity. Pay particular attention
to any +INSTALL, +POST-INSTALL, +DEINSTALL, +POST-DEINSTALL, +REQUIRE or
+MTREE_DIRS files, and inspect the +CONTENTS file for @cwd, @mode (check
for setuid), @dirrm, @exec, and @unexec directives, and/or use the
pkg_info(1) command to examine the package file.
OPTIONS
The following command line arguments are supported:
pkg-name [pkg-name ...]
The named packages are installed. A package name of - will cause
pkg_add to read from stdin. If the packages are not found in the
current working directory, pkg_add will search them in each
directory named by PKG_PATH.
-v, --verbose
Turn on verbose output.
-K, --keep
Keep any downloaded package in PKGDIR if it is defined or in cur‐
rent directory by default.
-i, --no-deps
Install the package without fetching and installing dependencies.
-I, --no-script
If any installation scripts (pre-install or post-install) exist
for a given package, do not execute them.
-n, --dry-run
Do not actually install a package, just report the steps that
would be taken if it was.
-R, --no-record
Do not record the installation of a package. This means that you
cannot deinstall it later, so only use this option if you know
what you are doing!
-r, --remote
Use the remote fetching feature. This will determine the appro‐
priate objformat and release and then fetch and install the pack‐
age.
-f, --force
Force installation to proceed even if prerequisite packages are
not installed or the requirements script fails. Although pkg_add
will still try to find and auto-install missing prerequisite
packages, a failure to find one will not be fatal.
-F Already installed packages are not an error.
-p, --prefix prefix
Set prefix as the directory in which to extract files from a
package. If a package has set its default directory, it will be
overridden by this flag. Note that only the first @cwd directive
will be replaced, since pkg_add has no way of knowing which
directory settings are relative and which are absolute. It is
rare in any case to see more than one directory transition made,
but when such does happen and you wish to have control over *all*
directory transitions, then you may then wish to look into the
use of MASTER and SLAVE modes (see the -M and -S options). If
the -p flag appears after any -P flag on the command line, it
overrides its effect, causing pkg_add not to use the given prefix
recursively.
-P prefix
Does the same as the -p option, except that the given prefix is
also used recursively for the dependency packages, if any. If
the -P flag appears after any -p flag on the command line, it
overrides its effect, causing pkg_add to use the given prefix
recursively.
-t, --template template
Use template as the input to mktemp(3) when creating a “staging
area”. By default, this is the string /var/tmp/instmp.XXXXXX,
but it may be necessary to override it in the situation where
space in your /var/tmp directory is limited. Be sure to leave
some number of `X' characters for mktemp(3) to fill in with a
unique ID.
You can get a performance boost by setting the staging area
template to reside on the same disk partition as target directo‐
ries for package file installation; often this is /usr.
-M, --master
Run in MASTER mode. This is a very specialized mode for running
pkg_add and is meant to be run in conjunction with SLAVE mode.
When run in this mode, pkg_add does no work beyond extracting the
package into a temporary staging area (see the -t option), read‐
ing in the packing list, and then dumping it (prefaced by the
current staging area) to stdout where it may be filtered by a
program such as sed(1). When used in conjunction with SLAVE
mode, it allows you to make radical changes to the package struc‐
ture before acting on its contents.
-S, --slave
Run in SLAVE mode. This is a very specialized mode for running
pkg_add and is meant to be run in conjunction with MASTER mode.
When run in this mode, pkg_add expects the release contents to be
already extracted and waiting in the staging area, the location
of which is read as a string from stdin. The complete packing
list is also read from stdin, and the contents then acted on as
normal.
-C, --chroot chrootdir
Before doing any operations, chroot(2) to the chrootdir directory
so that all package files, and the package database, are
installed to chrootdir. Note that chrootdir needs to be a fairly
complete file system, including everything normally needed by
pkg_add to run. This flag was added to help support operations
done by sysinstall(8) and is not expected to be useful for much
else. Be careful that chrootdir is properly configured and can‐
not be modified by normal users, versions of commands like
fetch(1) may be run inside chrootdir as a side effect.
One or more pkg-name arguments may be specified, each being either a file
containing the package (these usually end with a “.tbz” suffix) or a URL
pointing at a file available on an ftp site. Thus you may extract files
directly from their anonymous ftp locations (e.g. pkg_add
ftp://ftp.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/ports/packages/shells/bash-1.14.7.tbz).
Note: If you wish to use passive mode ftp in such transfers, set the
variable FTP_PASSIVE_MODE to some value in your environment. Otherwise,
the more standard ACTIVE mode may be used. If pkg_add consistently fails
to fetch a package from a site known to work, it may be because you have
a firewall that demands the usage of passive mode ftp.
TECHNICAL DETAILS
The pkg_add utility extracts each package's “packing list” into a special
staging directory (see ENVIRONMENT), parses it, and then runs through the
following sequence to fully extract the contents of the package:
1. A check is made to determine if the package is already recorded as
installed. If it is, installation is terminated.
2. A check is made to determine if the package conflicts (from
@conflicts directives, see pkg_create(1)) with an already installed
package. If it is, installation is terminated.
3. Scan all the package dependencies (from @pkgdep directives, see
pkg_create(1)) are read from the packing list. If any of these
required packages is not currently installed, an attempt is made to
find and install it; if the missing package cannot be found or
installed, the installation is terminated.
4. Search for any @option directives which control how the package is
added to the system. At the time of this writing, the only cur‐
rently implemented option is @option extract-in-place which will
cause the package to be extracted directly into its prefix directory
without moving through a staging area.
5. If @option extract-in-place is enabled, the package is now extracted
directly into its final location, otherwise it is extracted into the
staging area.
6. If a requirements script +REQUIRE exists for the package (see the -r
flag of pkg_create(1)), then execute it with the following argu‐
ments:
pkg-name INSTALL
where pkg-name is the name of the package in question and the
“INSTALL” keyword denotes this as an installation requirements check
(useful if you want to have one script serving multiple functions).
7. If a pre-install script +INSTALL exists for the package, it is then
executed with the following arguments:
pkg-name PRE-INSTALL
where pkg-name is the name of the package in question and
“PRE-INSTALL” is a keyword denoting this as the preinstallation
phase.
Note: The “PRE-INSTALL” keyword will not appear if separate scripts
for pre-install and post-install are given during package creation
time (using the -i and -I flags to pkg_create(1)).
8. If @option extract-in-place is not used, then the packing list (this
is the +CONTENTS file) is now used as a guide for moving (or copy‐
ing, as necessary) files from the staging area into their final
locations.
9. If an mtree file +MTREE_DIRS exists for the package (see the -m flag
of pkg_create(1)), then mtree(8) is invoked as:
mtree -U -f +MTREE_DIRS -d -e -p prefix
where prefix is either the prefix specified with the -p or -P flag
or, if neither flag was specified, the name of the first directory
named by a @cwd directive within this package.
10. If a post-install script +POST-INSTALL exists for the package, it is
then executed with the following arguments:
pkg-name POST-INSTALL
where pkg-name is the name of the package in question and
“POST-INSTALL” is a keyword denoting this as the post-installation
phase.
Note: The “POST-INSTALL” keyword will not appear if separate scripts
for pre-install and post-install are given during package creation
time (using the -i and -I flags to pkg_create(1)).
Reasoning behind passing keywords such as “POST-INSTALL” and
“PRE-INSTALL” is that this allows you to write a single install
script that does both “before” and “after” actions. But, separating
the functionality is more advantageous and easier from a maintenance
viewpoint.
11. After installation is complete, a copy of the description (+DESC),
comment (+COMMENT), pre-install script (+INSTALL), post-install
script (+POST-INSTALL), deinstall script (+DEINSTALL), post-dein‐
stall script (+POST-DEINSTALL), requirements script (+REQUIRE), dis‐
play (+DISPLAY), mtree (+MTREE_DIRS), and packing list (+CONTENTS)
files are copied into /var/db/pkg/⟨pkg-name⟩ for subsequent possible
use by pkg_delete(1). Any package dependencies are recorded in the
other packages' /var/db/pkg/⟨other-pkg⟩/+REQUIRED_BY file (if the
environment variable PKG_DBDIR is set, this overrides the
/var/db/pkg/ path shown above).
12. Finally, the staging area is deleted and the program terminates.
All the scripts are called with the environment variable PKG_PREFIX set
to the installation prefix (see the -p and -P options above). This
allows a package author to write a script that reliably performs some
action on the directory where the package is installed, even if the user
might change it with the -p or -P flags to pkg_add.
ENVIRONMENT
The value of the PKG_PATH is used if a given package cannot be found.
The environment variable should be a series of entries separated by
colons. Each entry consists of a directory name. The current directory
may be indicated implicitly by an empty directory name, or explicitly by
a single period.
The environment variable PKG_DBDIR specifies an alternative location for
the installed package database, default location is /var/db/pkg.
The environment variables PKG_TMPDIR and TMPDIR, in that order, are taken
to name temporary directories where pkg_add will attempt to create its
staging area in. If these variables are not present or if the directo‐
ries named lack sufficient space, then pkg_add will use the first of
/var/tmp, /tmp or /usr/tmp with sufficient space.
The environment variable PACKAGEROOT specifies an alternate location for
pkg_add to fetch from. The fetch URL is built using this environment
variable and the automatic directory logic that pkg_add uses when the -r
option is invoked. An example setting would be "ftp://ftp3.FreeBSD.org".
The environment variable PACKAGESITE specifies an alternate location for
pkg_add to fetch from. This variable subverts the automatic directory
logic that pkg_add uses when the -r option is invoked. Thus it should be
a complete URL to the remote package file(s).
The environment variable PKGDIR specifies an alternative location to save
downloaded packages to when -K option is used.
FILES
/var/tmp Temporary directory for creating the staging area, if envi‐
ronmental variables PKG_TMPDIR or TMPDIR do not point to a
suitable directory.
/tmp Next choice if /var/tmp does not exist or has insufficient
space.
/usr/tmp Last choice if /var/tmp and /tmp are not suitable for creat‐
ing the staging area.
/var/db/pkg Default location of the installed package database.
SEE ALSOpkg_create(1), pkg_delete(1), pkg_info(1), pkg_version(1), mktemp(3),
sysconf(3), mtree(8)AUTHORS
Jordan Hubbard
CONTRIBUTORS
John Kohl ⟨jtk@rational.com⟩
BUGS
Hard links between files in a distribution are only preserved if either
(1) the staging area is on the same file system as the target directory
of all the links to the file, or (2) all the links to the file are brack‐
eted by @cwd directives in the contents file, and the link names are
extracted with a single tar command (not split between invocations due to
exec argument-space limitations--this depends on the value returned by
sysconf(_SC_ARG_MAX)).
Sure to be others.
BSD January 4, 2009 BSD